Railway Gardens 



Bath and Bristol, I have this year seen with much 

 pleasure a goodly patch of the viper's bugloss 

 {Echiuni vulgare). This plant is not uncommon 

 in many parts of England, especially in the chalk 

 districts, but it is a very rare plant in the Bath 

 and Bristol flora, so rare that only two stations 

 are given for it, and in those stations it is far 

 from abundant ; yet it has found a suitable home 

 on this railway bank, and will very probably 

 increase and multiply there. When I say that 

 I have been much pleased to see it, it is because 

 I consider it one of our most beautiful British 

 plants ; the union of azure blue, with red in the 

 same flower, is very unusual and very beautiful. 

 The spotted stem suggested a viper's skin, and 

 the seed was supposed to be like a viper's head, 

 and hence the name, and in the days of the 

 doctrine of signatures it was considered a safe 

 remedy against the bite of vipers, as it still is in 

 Spain and Portugal. 



We cannot suppose that plants can in any way 

 choose their habitats, but we can easily see that if 

 by chance a seed should light upon a spot which 

 was at the same time not easily reached by man 

 or beast and had suitable soil it would there at 

 once take root and flourish, and this must be the 

 explanation of the occurrence of plants in un- 

 expected places, as railway banks and cuttings, 

 and there flourishing with unwonted vigour. The 

 finest bee orchis I ever saw was at the top of a 

 deep cutting through a sandstone rock ; it was 

 139 



